Rome after the kalends of September, and when
Caius Julius Caesar Caligula ruled over Imperial Rome.

Arminius Quirinius, the censor, was dead. He had died by his own hand,
and thus was a life of extortion and of fraud brought to an ignominious
end through the force of public opinion, and by the decree of that same
Caesar who himself had largely benefited by the mal-practices of his
minion.

Arminius Quirinius had committed every crime, sunk to every kind of
degradation which an inordinate love of luxury and the insatiable
desires of jaded senses had suggested as a means to satisfaction, until
the treachery of his own accomplices had thrown the glaring light of
publicity on a career of turpitude such as even these decadent times had
seldom witnessed ere this.

Enough that the end had come at last. A denunciation from the rostrum, a
discontented accomplice thirsting for revenge, an angry crowd eager to
listen, and within an hour the mighty, much-feared censor was forced to
flee from Rome to escape the fury of a populace which would have torn
him to pieces, and was ready even to massacre his family and his
womenfolk, his clients and his slaves.

He escaped to his villa at Ostia. But the Emperor Caligula, having duly
enjoyed the profits derived from his favourite's extortions, hurled
anathema and the full weight of his displeasure on the man who had been
not only fool enough to be found out, but who had compromised the
popularity of the Caesar in the eyes of the people and of the army.
Twenty-four hours later the imperial decree went forth that the
disgraced censor must end his days in any manner which he thought
best--seeing that a patrician and member of the Senate could not be
handed over to common justice--and also that the goods of Arminius
Quirinius should be publicly sold for the benefit of the State and the
profit of those whom the extortioner had wronged.

The latter phrase, though somewhat vague, pleased the people and soothed
public irritation, and the ephemeral popularity of a half-crazy tyrant
was momentarily restored. Be it said however, that less than a month
later the Caesar decided that he himself had been the person most wronged
by Arminius, and that the bulk of the profits derived from the sale of
the late censor's goods must therefore find its way into the imperial
coffers.

The furniture of Arminius' house within the city and that of his villa
at Ostia had fetched vast sums at a public auction